Empty
by jelenamichel
Summary: He doesn't let her fill him like she once did, but the real agony is that he knows it won't take much more than a layered glance to change that again. A T/Z conversation set before season eight's final scene.


**A/N: I don't know why I've addressed this plot point right now but here we are anyway.  
>This is set after the P2P killer is wrapped up and E.J. leaves, but before Tony gets his assignment at the end of season eight. Specific timing of events might be a little wonky because I can't quite remember how much time passed between events A, B and C, but I can't bear to go back and watch the episode to sort it out. Please don't make me.<br>Warnings for swears and angst, and it's not the healthiest T/Z fic I've written, but just go with it.  
>Disclaimer: Disclaimed.<strong>

There have been moments in his life when emptiness was all Tony craved. When his mother died and he couldn't bear the hurt. When his dream career was cut short and the loss of pride made his fury peak. When guilt over his director's death made him drink, and when the loss of his partner made him want to die. In each of those moments, he had wanted to be empty. Emptiness meant that he wouldn't feel hurt, wouldn't pick up the bottle, wouldn't hope for death after love had been ripped away. Emptiness meant numbing peace.

But there have been other times—most of the time—when Tony has gone out of his way to avoid the abyss. He used to fill empty nights with interchangeable brunettes and partying too late. He filled an empty apartment with a huge television and a library of celluloid friends and family. And he filled his life with constant work that would forever be too important to quit. Because he worries that maybe, just maybe, if he spends too much time with the emptiness, he will find it too hard to pull himself out of it again and he'll lose the rest of his life.

The emptiness has been closing in on him tonight, and he hasn't made up his mind about whether to run from it or welcome it with open arms. While his empty apartment holds no appeal for his restless and grief-tinged thoughts, in contrast the bullpen is too full of the ghosts of those who he can no longer touch. E.J., Cade, Levin and Franks. Some are gone more permanently than others, but he doubts any of the living will cast shadows under the unforgiving skylight at the Navy Yard any time soon.

His partner still lives, but while her body remains ten feet from his in the bullpen he is almost certain that her mind is elsewhere. He feels that she's had one foot out the door since CI-Ray turned up in D.C., and after Franks' death and her kidnapping, he's almost positive that the door is about to close behind her. He will devote hour after hour to her tears and flyaway curls and give her his word that he will never stop trying to make everything turn out okay. But he thinks the time when he alone was enough to keep her there has come and gone. He's losing her fast—every smile from Ray loosens another of Tony's fingers from her wrist. He's acutely aware that he can't keep hold on her forever. It's why he started preparing for their separation with a lover of his own and an ongoing mood that warned her from coming too close.

He doesn't let her fill him like she once did either, but the real agony is that he knows it won't take much more than a layered glance to change that again. It's what always seems to happen. They resolve to let each other go and then one of them slips. Exhaustion makes them forgetful. Trauma beats shoddily constructed barriers from their hearts. A fleeting touch ends up making them reach for more. A too-long moment of shared silence suddenly carries the weight of _maybe__this__time_. A shared glance in a moment of weakness always fills him. Until the day that she is truly, physically gone he knows he will keep falling in love with her, no matter how much he fights it. Sometimes he wishes he could empty himself of her but that will only come when she leaves.

Tonight he feels that the moment of her final exit from the agency and his life could come within days, not weeks or months. He tells himself he would not be surprised if he turned up at work on Monday to find her desk cleaned out. And as much as he doesn't want to let her fill him in these days of _seeing__someone__else_ and keeping the distance between them, he knows that when she goes he won't be able to stop himself falling down the path he seems destined to follow. Ducky has always said that Gibbs used to be so much like Tony, but until now Tony hasn't been able to see how that could possibly be. But now he does. Now he gets it. With Ziva gone he'll turn into sad, broken, Gibbs with nothing else in his life but work.

It's this last thought that briefly spurs him into action. He still can't face his empty apartment tonight, and since a quickie with E.J. to relieve some stress is out of the question he decides to go for a run. An hour of exertion without a single thought about E.J. or Ziva or Franks or Gibbs or any of the other half dozen crappy things to happen this week is exactly what he needs to get him through tonight and tomorrow. Whatever gets him through the night and day after this will be tomorrow's problem.

He takes off on the track that winds around to the west of the Navy Yard just as the sun starts to go down. He lets himself fall into his own version of runner's meditation, focusing on his breathing and the rhythm of his steps hitting the pavement, but he's unable to keep the thoughts that panic him fully out of his head. So when he sees a figure he knows by heart stopped on the footbridge over a stream ahead, he thinks he might be imagining it. He's never imagined full body apparitions of her before though (at least not while he's been awake), and he did see her take off on the same track over an hour ago. He would have expected her to be done with running and on her way home by now, but the way she's slouching with her elbows resting on the railing of the bridge makes him think that she mustn't be that interested in running right now.

The urge to assess her position on the scale of _I__'__m__Fine_ is always a companion of his. But it's grown stronger since she granted him an audience with her vulnerability in the elevator. He couldn't turn a blind eye then just as he can't run past her now, even if the whole point of this run is to get her out of his head. He can't help it; she still fills him. So he slows his pace right down to a stroll and then stops two feet from her defeated form.

He finds it hard to approach her these days, so he treats her like an acquaintance who would mistake his humor as a sign that he poses no threat. "Have we got a floater?"

She barely turns her head, barely cracks a smile, and he's instantly disappointed in himself for treating her as anything other than his partner. He must do better if he wants a response from her, and frankly that's a relief. He's in no mood for a comedy routine tonight.

"Everything okay?"

Her prolonged silence has him weighing up the pros and cons of pushing her to share thoughts he probably doesn't want to hear. When her hand delves into her jacket pocket only to reappear with a ring box, he's _certain_ he doesn't want to hear it. Because he doubts she's giving him a present, and the alternative makes his heart seize in pain.

That can't be what he thinks it is, right? They've only been dating—long distance—for a couple of months. There's no way the Ziva he knows would move that fast…_Crap._

She holds the box out to him but he makes no attempt to take it from her, and defaults to playing dumb on the miniscule chance that it will make this all go away. "What's this?"

Her voice lacks the shrill excitement of the recently betrothed. Instead, it holds the tightness of the bereaved. "Ray gave it to me."

The pain in his heart grows to envelop his entire chest and a sizeable chunk of his suddenly nauseous stomach, and he wonders how this already shitty week could possibly get any worse. He's lost for words he can speak aloud, but the punishing little voice inside him is full of things to say.

_She's gone. You've completely lost her. You waited too long and there's no fixing it. You treated her like shit when she was too good for you to begin with, and now she's done with it, you sad, pathetic fuck up._

He swallows hard and offers the expected response. "Congratulations." It is the flattest, least sincere platitude he's ever given anyone, but he can't find the energy within him to try again. All his energy is currently focused on trying to block out the sudden pain of loss and regret. Maybe he won't bother trying to escape the emptiness tonight after all…

If his partner is offended by his bold-faced lie, she is adept at hiding it. She shakes the box at him but refuses to meet his eyes. "Open it."

Her insistence plants the irrational urge within him to call her a bitch and then run away. But his need for regular doses of torment keeps him rooted to the spot as he lifts his arm to follow her instructions. He cracks open the little red box with the expectation that he'll be blinded by a diamond large enough to satisfy an Israeli who has spent the last few years discovering her girly side. But the box is empty. He glances at the hands she is holding out in front of her as if inspecting a manicure. Each finger is bare, just like always.

He frowns deeply, trying to grasp what's going on here. "Where's the ring?"

Ziva barely glances in his direction, but he recognizes the expression of disappointment that sits heavily on her face. "He did not give me one," she tells him thickly. "The box was empty. He said it was a promise."

Before he can think it through, Tony reacts with complete honestly. He starts with a 'tsk' of disappointment before opening his fat mouth. "What a fu—" His common sense catches up just before he gives his partner's possible fiancé a verbal smackdown he's not there to receive. In the space of a deep breath he edits his response to that of a supportive friend instead of a jealous never-boyfriend. "Sorry. Um, I guess he had to leave pretty suddenly, so—"

"No," she cuts in as her eyes near his face again. "Tell me more about the sighing and the angry muttering."

_It__'__s__a__trap,_ warns the voice in his head. He knows that offering his honest thoughts has the potential to make her yell at him and push him over the railing and into the creek. But if this were Abby, he would press ahead. Ziva should not be any different. She is, but she shouldn't be. He decides he has nothing to lose.

"You deserve better, Ziva," he tells her, and the rest comes out in a rush of certainty. "A whole lot better. I'm not arguing that his feelings for you aren't genuine. But an empty box? That's not how you treat someone you want to spend your life with. That crap doesn't even fly in the movies."

He hands the box back to her and Ziva starts turning it end-over-end in her fingers. He uses her silence to watch her profile closely, looking for signs of anger, disappointment or hurt. But all he sees is sadness, and he wonders if he really isn't telling her anything she doesn't already know.

He turns to mirror her position against the rail and looks down at the water flowing beneath them. It occurs to him that the fact that she is not yelling and denying could mean that he hasn't lost her after all. Maybe there is a sliver of hope that she hasn't made up her mind to wait for the day Ray brings her more than a promise. Maybe if he can make himself be honest with her every once in a while then he'll have a shot at…what? Winning her?

God, he's going to let her fill him again. There's really no stopping it when he wants it so much. He hears the bells in his head warning him against handing her every piece of himself he's tried to take back this year, but he has an addictive personality that makes it impossible. Telling himself to keep his emotional distance from her is like a crackhead trying to tell themselves to stay clean when the pipe is already in their hand.

But it's not just his interests that are important here. His partner is clearly hurting, and he can't help but want to make her feel better. So he gives himself over to the urge to fight for their non-relationship and allows himself to offer what he hopes is comforting honesty.

"Look, I know there's something in you right now that wants to settle down. It's a feeling I'm familiar with." He pauses as he devotes a few moments' thought to his ex-fiancé and what he'd been through in the months before and after they'd broken up. He's never told Ziva about Wendy, but it hits him that she probably already knows. The background searches she did on the whole team before she arrived in D.C. were thorough, and he's now sure that she would have drawn a link between his credit card activity and an almost-wedding. He wonders why she's never brought it up before, but doesn't particularly want to question her about it. And that's not the issue right now.

"I almost got there once," he pushes out, proceeding with the conversation as if his engagement would be news to her. "But I knew she wasn't the right girl. I almost went through with it anyway because I wanted to feel settled and…secure, I guess. I wanted to put down my roots. I wanted to think that 'probably' was good enough. But I got a really good piece of advice from this guy who'd been married four times already that I'm going to pass on to you." He looks over in time to see her mouth twitch as she stalls her tears, and the sight gives him confidence that he's doing right by her now. "There's no point being married on paper if you're not married in your heart. The vows, the ceremony, the legalities…they're not what makes a marriage. And they don't magically make all your doubts go away. They amplify them."

His eyes turn to the water again to provide her a sliver of privacy as tears gather in her eyes, but he makes himself finish his thought. "The official part of it should be a minor detail that complements what your heart and head have already committed to."

He allows her silence to consider his life experience while he wonders for the six billionth time if he did the right thing by leaving Wendy. But he's as sure today as he'd been on the day he cried and stuttered his way through it that he had. He wonders if Wendy sees it that way yet.

The significant woman in his life now sniffs back tears he knows must infuriate her and looks over at him. He meets her eyes for the first time that night, and she shoots him the barest of grateful smiles. "I do not doubt his sincerity," she says, "but how drunk was Gibbs when he told you that?"

He smiles, because they both know the taciturn marine doesn't talk about things like feelings unless it's an emergency. To be fair, neither does Tony or Ziva. "Pretty drunk."

She throws him a bigger smile to show that she's heard him before her eyes once again drift, taking the levity from the moment and drowning it in the slow-moving current beneath them. "How close were you?" she asks.

At first he thinks she's enquiring about his relationship with their drunken boss, but he jumps aboard her train of thought right before he has to ask. His throat requires a loosening swallow before he can give her an honest answer. "Well, I got her a ring," he tells her gently, but pointedly. Enough to comment on her boyfriend's failings, but not enough to put her down. "And she even wore it for a while."

She doesn't seem to have anything to say to that, so he turns the spotlight back on her. So far she has neglected to divulge the key piece of information that will either break him or kick his ass back into gear.

"What did you tell him?"

Her eyes return to the empty box still turning over and over in her hands. "Nothing," she says softly, and though he can't understand why, he thinks she might be embarrassed. "He told me to think about it while he was away."

"When's he coming back?"

"He couldn't say."

He turns his head away from her so that she can't see the anger he suddenly feels flash through him reflected on his face. He doesn't want this crap for her. He doesn't want her always waiting for her boyfriend or husband to put her first. She deserves better. More than that, he's sure that she _wants_ better. But with Ziva, he knows it is always safer to ask rather than assume.

"How do you feel about that?" he asks, keeping his voice as even as possible.

Her answer has the robotic tone she reserves for when she is spewing out the rhetoric that's been drummed into her since she was the Mossad equivalent of a navy brat. It lacks all the emotion that has blossomed through her in the last six years. "I understand it."

"That's not what I asked," he returns. He's not letting her get away with toeing the CIA line on this.

He watches her push her jaw forward and he reads the tell: she's weighing up duty and desire. "I grew up with it," she says, and her thin voice and the wander of her eyes in his direction tells him that desire is winning out. "I do not wish to live with it again. But I do not wish to live alone." The brutal, terrifying honesty of her thoughts being spoken aloud is what finally sends a tear sliding down her cheek. Her fingers quickly and angrily swipe all evidence of it away before it has even crested her cheekbone, and he knows she is berating herself for her perceived weakness of needing someone to love her.

Jesus, sometimes he just wants to grab her and shake her so hard…

"Those aren't your only two options, Ziva," he tells her, not quite succeeding in keeping all his frustration out of his voice. "It's not a choice between alone, and _half_ alone with Ray."

"But he understands my life," she counters, arguing more firmly than he expects her to.

_So__do__I_, he wants to say, but declarations like that won't help her right now. They will only confuse and upset her more than she is. Not to mention what they will do to his emotionally unstable heart.

He reaches deep within himself and sorts through his thoughts until he finds one that has been prepared by the side of him that is her partner and friend. "You want my honest opinion on that?"

Her eyes find his once more and show surprise that he might not agree with her on the matter. He takes her silence and arched eyebrow as an invitation to argue with her.

"No, he doesn't, Ziva," he states. "If he did he would be here right now. He wouldn't have gotten on a plane to God knows where for God knows how long the day after you were taken and we thought you were dead." His head inclines towards her as the friend and partner loses ground to the guy who has accepted that he loves her and wants her to fill him. "He should be glued to you right now, even though he knows that you would kick his ass for doing so. I don't think he understands your life, Ziva. I think he understands that _you_ understand _his_."

He forces himself to hold her gaze, praying that she won't see the guilt in his eyes before he sees a reaction in hers. Realization slowly spreads across her face and he's sure that his argument is one she hadn't considered before. When her eyes grow infinitely sadder a moment later, he is also sure that he wants to punch himself in the head. He knows this woman, and he knows that she will assign blame for this revelation to herself. In Ziva's eyes it is not Ray's arrogance or thoughtlessness that deserves punishment but her own failure to see what was happening.

He does not share her predisposition for Ziva-flagellation, so he is quick to soften the blow he dealt her. "It bears repeating that I don't doubt his feelings for you are genuine. But I don't think he's the right guy. And I wouldn't be your partner if I didn't tell you that."

Perhaps that is not entirely true. He cannot deny that painting Ray as the wrong guy serves his own interests. But if she were to ask, he would admit to as much. As for the rest of it, it passes the Abby litmus test. If he would say it to his completely platonic friend and surrogate sister, then he should say it to his…Ziva.

Eventually her eyes fall to the ring box again as she accepts his assessment. "I know he's not," she says softly, and he again gets the feeling that she is embarrassed. "But perhaps second prize is the best I can hope for."

He shakes his head and disputes her theory before he has the time to dwell on where he knows he sits on the prize list. "No. I think you just need to be patient for a little longer. I mean, when have you ever settled for anything, Ziva?"

She almost smiles. "Since I learnt to compromise."

"Oh, well you need to forget how to do that," he cracks.

Now she does smile, and even turns to face him. "Wasn't that what used to infuriate you about me? That I would not consider your ideas?"

"One of the things," he confirms, and it's easy because they're joking like normal now. "But when I say you should stop compromising, I don't mean with me. You should _always_ compromise with me. And probably Gibbs."

Her smile grows even more, and this time she chuckles. She starts tossing the little ring box back and forth between her hands as if it's a toy to amuse her, rather than a trinket to cherish. "How does one go about compromising with Gibbs?" she asks. "When you are supposed to just do what he says."

He cocks his head to the side as he concedes her argument. "Okay, you have a good point there. But you—" He cuts himself off when he lifts a hand to point at her and inadvertently blocks the trajectory of the ring box. It bounces off his hand and tumbles over the rail into the river before either of them have a chance to do anything more than watch it fall. It hits the water and quickly disappears from view, and Tony turns his most apologetic wince on her. "Crap, I'm really sorry."

After a moment of consideration, Ziva calmly lifts her head to look at him. "It doesn't matter," she tells him, absolving his sin with a shake of her head and a shrug. "It was empty anyway."

Whether she gives up because she knew it was an empty promise anyway, or because his rarely-used wisdom of experience has filled her with food for thought, he doesn't know. But her mood has definitely lifted from the depths of introspection of minutes ago, and his lifts with hers.

"You'll get another one someday," he tells her, feeling the need to add a closing line to the conversation.

The laugh she gives him this time is more of a snort of derision. "An empty box?"

He shakes his head quickly. "No, no. A box with a really beautiful size five diamond."

"Really." It's not a question but a statement of her doubt.

"Yeah, sure. We've just got to—" He cuts himself off again as his slip up reaches his ears. _We_ might be what he's getting at, but there's no way that either of them are ready to talk about that. He swallows and revises, knowing that she will let it go without comment. "You've just got to wait until all the right ducks are in a row before you can take a shot and win the prize."

"Patience," she echoes with a sad but understanding smile.

"Yeah."

It seems to be a good enough answer for her, even though technically it's no better than Ray's empty box and promise for the future. Perhaps she accepts it simply because Tony's had the time to develop good will that Ray hasn't. Perhaps she grants him liberties because she finds it as impossible to let go of him as he does of her. Perhaps she just needed to know that even after everything they've endured in the last few years, he is still loves her and has hopes for their future. He realizes that is what he needed tonight. He wanted to fall into emptiness because he believed that another man had given her everything she wanted that Tony wasn't ready to give. But now that he finds himself mistaken he is ready to feel the Technicolor pain and joy of life again. All because she has hinted in the vague and disjointed language that only they speak that she might still love him. Perhaps what she needed tonight was for him to return the sentiment.

She pushes off the railing and he falls in step beside her as they head back towards the NCIS building. He doesn't feel the need for a run like he did before. He's far fonder of her company than sweating in sweat pants.

"Thank you," she throws his way when they step off the footbridge.

He chances a brief touch to her back. "You're welcome. But I think you should throw some thanks to Gibbs' string of bad marriages."

She chuckles. "Any advice on how I should begin that conversation with him?"

"Get him drunk," he suggests.

She takes that without comment and they walk a few yards in comfortable silence until she picks at the bandage on her neck and he remembers that only a few hours ago he was convinced she was on her way out the door. He may feel more confident that she's not walking away from _him_, but the question about her ongoing presence in the bullpen remains.

"So, how are you feeling?" he asks. "You know, after…well, everything this week. I guess it's hard to pin down to one single, shitty event."

He thinks his approach is stealth enough so that she won't hear _ohmyGodpromiseyou__'__renotgoingtoquit_in his words. But that's the comment that she addresses.

"I am not going anywhere," she tells him, and her voice is so gentle and sincere that he believes her. "The thing with Franks…I was just tired and sad and…I feel stupid."

Relief floods him, and for the first time that night he feels secure enough to touch her arm. "Ziva, you don't need to explain yourself to me. I know how you feel."

She takes a deep, barely shaky breath and then flashes him a self-aware smile. "Probably."

It's a brief acknowledgement of the pros and cons of knowing each other so well. As their conversation tonight has illustrated so well, the ability can turn from help to hindrance and back again in the space of a single sentence. "You and I are really, really good partners," he tells her, and he doubts she will argue. "But if we suck at anything it's being open about how we're feeling."

The comment makes her laugh, and it takes him a moment to understand why. The phrase _"__no__shit,__Sherlock__"_ jumps to mind as he thinks about the six years they've spent not talking about their relationship, and the direct impact their choice to stick their heads in the sand is having on their lives right now. He allows himself to smile with her, because what's the point in insisting on denying their feelings in the middle of this conversation? "I wasn't actually talking about that. It's an excellent example, but let's continue to avoid it for the moment."

She is quick to nod her head in agreement. "Okay."

"I mean we don't talk about the stresses and worries of the job," he says, getting back on track. "But we probably should."

"We used to."

She eyes him carefully as he turns that around in his head. She's right. For a few months what feels like three lifetimes ago, he was her team leader. And during that time they would talk _a__lot_. For as much crap as she gave him at work, it was still talking to her as night fell and took away their professional distance that restored his confidence and reassured him that he could do the job. He thinks those few months might've been the last time they talked to each other without having to be careful about what they said.

"Yeah."

"But then you got your assignment and could not talk about it."

Jeanne. There is nothing accusing in her tone, but he knows that relationship hurt her. Hurt _them_. He spent so much time pushing her as far away from him as possible.

"Yeah."

"And by the end of it," she says on a sigh, "everything was too complicated."

Understatement. He recalls Ziva's attempts to get him to talk about his feelings, and how much he did not appreciate it at the time. He was hurting too much, and he knew Ziva was in love with him, and although he knew she was coming to him as a friend, he made sure the space between them remained until he had dealt with things on his own. Because honestly, the temptation to abuse her as a human anti-depressant had been hard to resist.

"Yeah, I guess."

He looks over to give her an acknowledging smile over the rough road they've traveled, and finds her dark eyes projecting empathy for a much more recent loss of affection.

"I am sorry about E.J."

The name sounds strange on her lips, and he thinks that might be the first time she has not referred to the woman she was so wary of as 'Agent Barrett'. Fleetingly, he wonders if this is because Ziva no longer sees her as a threat, or because she is attempting to be sensitive to his feelings. He thinks it could be both.

"Yeah. Well, it wasn't…We…" He stops himself before he stutters any more and tries to order his thoughts. He liked E.J. He really liked her. She was fun and beautiful and easy to be with. But the sorrow he feels over the end of their relationship does not reflect the loss of the great love of his life. It's regret that fills him most, and uneasiness with the thought that if Ziva wasn't in his life, he probably would have been quite happy to commit to her long-term. He's not ready to admit this to Ziva in such blatant terms though, so he steals her words from moments ago. "Second prize," he shrugs with a bittersweet smile on his lips. "I'll get over it. But I'm probably going to be doing a lot more running in the next couple of weeks. Work out all this excess energy."

Ziva has been acquainted with his sex tone since literally the first time she heard him speak, and she makes an overly disgusted face that he knows is supposed to make him laugh. "Oh, _Tony_," she admonishes.

The brief return to normal _does_ make him smile, but he resists the urge to tug her hair. Things aren't _that_ normal yet.

She lifts her hand to scratch at the edge of the bandage again, and his mood shifts from jovial back to worried. God, he gets so sick of seeing her bleeding. "How's your head?" he asks, addressing it directly this time.

"It will be fine," she replies easily. "But it will probably scar. Two more and I will win some free plastic surgery." She crosses her fingers as if making a wish, and again he knows she's trying to make him smile. But the idea behind it—trying to find a silver lining to the seemingly unending line of men waiting for their turn to cut her up—makes him feel sick.

"Please don't joke about that."

The hand that briefly squeezes his hand is warm and sympathetic. She doesn't apologize for her black humor, but has mercy through changing the subject. "Are you busy tonight?"

"No." But he's looking for a distraction to keep the emptiness at bay, and he thinks she might know it.

"Do you want to go home and grab a movie that I absolutely must see in order to understand what it is to be an American and bring it over to my apartment? We can use it as a convenient distraction while we sporadically talk about our work-related feelings."

He turns a full grin on her. "That is the best pick up line I have ever heard."

She gives him a wink that does away with the final dregs of her sadness. "It has a 100 per cent success rate."

Well, he certainly doesn't feel like turning her down. "Beer or wine?"

"Wine."

"You have some or you want me to pick some up?"

She waves her hand dismissively. "No, I have some of that pinot we used to drink magnums of."

Back in the days when everything was infinitely less complicated and a whole lot more fun. "Great," he says, and then stops her with a hand on her arm to ask a completely unfiltered and perhaps inappropriate question. "Wait, you didn't share that with Ray, did you?"

She does not seem offended by his unspoken accusation that the man was not even good enough for France's finest. "No. He does not like pinot."

He pushes his luck even more to cock his head and lift a derisive eyebrow. Honestly, she should have known the relationship wouldn't last from that alone. The Ziva David _he_ knew drank that stuff like water.

Ziva nods as if she is just conceding his point. "I know, I know. But I was willing to overlook it."

"What are you doing to yourself?" he jokes as they pick up the pace again. "You've got to stop compromising!"

"But—"

"I already said I'm different," he anticipates.

There is a long, pointed silence before she sends him the most affectionate yet withering look he's ever seen. "Yes," she agrees. "You certainly are."

He smiles like she's paid him a compliment, even though he knows she's making fun.

The rest of the brief run back to the office is made in silence, but it holds a comfort that he hasn't felt in months. Because now it seems his most beloved friend has made a choice and allowed him to strengthen his grip on her again. Perhaps in the end this grip will be what pulls them both over the edge, and he'll look back and wish he'd just let her go. But tonight she's filled him up again with love and hope and a fight for the future.

He will only ever be truly empty when she leaves his life for good.

**With thanks to the ex-Mrs Gibbs for the human anti-depressant line. Because that's _exactly_ it. **


End file.
